Invasion of the Tawny Crazy Ants

Chris Cotelesse

Published
5:57 pm CDT, Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Tawny Crazy Ants have made their way into the Tomball area. The ants have become a nuisance to area homeowners and businesses because they get into electrical wiring and cause problems by shutting down breaker boxes.

Tawny Crazy Ants have made their way into the Tomball area. The ants have become a nuisance to area homeowners and businesses because they get into electrical wiring and cause problems by shutting down breaker

Tawny Crazy Ants have made their way into the Tomball area. The ants have become a nuisance to area homeowners and businesses because they get into electrical wiring and cause problems by shutting down breaker boxes.

Tawny Crazy Ants have made their way into the Tomball area. The ants have become a nuisance to area homeowners and businesses because they get into electrical wiring and cause problems by shutting down breaker

An invasive species of ants known as tawny crazy ants are migrating throughout Southeast Texas, causing concern among those areas which now include The Woodlands.

“We’re getting all kinds of calls from north of Houston,” said Roger Gold, endowed chair in urban and structural entomology at Texas A&M University. “We’re concerned because they’re spreading rapidly inland from the coastal regions.”

The ants don’t bite or sting, but Gold said their numbers and rate of population growth can upset local ecosystems.

“You can go from a few ants in the very early spring of the year to millions of ants by midsummer going into fall.”

Unlike other species of ants that support a single queen for each central colony, tawny crazy ants will nest anywhere that is moist and sustain multiple queens in various stages of reproduction.

The ants, which get their name from their erratic movements, were first confirmed in Texas near Pasadena in 2002. They have since spread to 25 counties.

Gold said they are spread most commonly through human movement. He said the ants get into commercial shipments, and people pack them up and bring them along when moving from one area to another.

“There are just such high numbers of them, they just kind of overwhelm an apartment or a house,” he said.

They can get into electrical equipment and cause the devices to short circuit, but they can have a farther-reaching impact on the environment.

“There’s nothing that restricts the population growth and because of that they push out other species, some of which are considered to be beneficial,” he said.

They have no natural predators in North America and are able to spread easily. They have been known to infest beehives and decrease the populations needed to pollinate local vegetation. They migrate so aggressively that they even overtake other ant species and feed on their unhatched enemies.

“Oftentimes where these tawny ants are found, the numbers of fire ants go down,” he said.

He said that some people who call his office about the ants would rather have the fire ants, because they primarily remain outdoors.

As the tawny crazy ants continue to spread, they decrease what Gold called “faunal diversity,” which could potentially upset the environment.

“Each species has something that they add to stability of an ecosystem,” he said. “The more diverse, the more stable is that ecosystem.”

Unfortunately, the most common pesticides used to curb insect populations aren’t effective on tawny crazy ants. Gold said a chemical called Termidor may help residents secure their homes against the insect invaders, but homeowners should first “simplify the environment.”

“In other words: clean up your yard,” he said.

The ants will nest under any items that can provide shelter from the heat. Eliminating these shelters will help to keep tawny crazy ants out of homes.